While many movie critics have been bashing the hell out of M. Night Shyamalan‘s Lady In The Water, I personally thought the movie was a beautiful and compelling tale and I think people are being too hard on it. They wanted another movie like The Sixth Sense, and that’s just not where Night was creatively at the time. I know, because I’ve read the book.

Michael Bamberger trailed Night from the end stages of writing the script all the way through casting, filming, editing, etc. While the author does paint Night as a certain shade of neurotic, he also exposes Night’s intense passion for story-telling and for creative filmmaking.

I’m only about halfway into the mini-biography now, but I must say it’s been very interesting to read about the progress of the film. You’ll read about the meeting between Night and the Disney execs who didn’t “get” the movie. You’ll read about Night’s “voices” – somewhere between a conscience and crazy people voices – and his obsession with Michael Jordan. It’s an in-depth study into one of the most well-known filmmakers of recent years, and the movie that could break him.